MeetUp.com: Fast-tracking Friendships

Calgary is a hotbed for transplanted Canadians, many of whom find it difficult to meet new people. If you’re one of them, don’t fret: the free online tool called meetup.com is fast-tracking friendships across the four quadrants.

“It’s a city catalogue of events,” says Megan Choi, who has found friends in groups geared toward hiking, fashion, dog-walking and social change. Pick any hobby and it’s there.

Kelly Findley, a local organizer with meetup.com, coordinates downtown pub nights for more than 700 local members. “The whole point is to meet people and then eventually hang out with them outside the events,” says Findley, who is originally from Ottawa. Attendees at his pub nights are usually 20- to 40-somethings, many of them single and from around the globe.

“It’s like travelling the world without leaving Calgary,” says Michelle Headrick, a marketing manager with Pfizer, who is originally from Saskatchewan. In less than two weeks with the meetup group, Headrick learned Irish dancing, served a meal at the Calgary Drop-In Centre and “tasted some of the finest wines Austria has to offer.”

Think of it as offline social networking because, ironically, meetup.com is all about using the Internet to get off the Internet.